KERI: On Friday, forest minister Vishwajit Rane had said that tigers found in Goa’s forests were only those in transit. Environmentalists have, however, pointed at clear evidence of tiger presence captured through camera traps for years in Goa’s forests.
Through the camera trap technique, the presence of the big cat has been proven in Goa’s forests since 2013, besides the evidence found during the ongoing tiger census.
“Since ages, Goa’s forest has been known for tigers and, subsequently, camera traps installed by our officials have repeatedly shown tigers thriving in Goa. Considering the ecological significance of Mhadei and Netravali regions, Goa government has given long time protection by declaring the earlier reserved forests as sanctuaries,” former chief wildlife warden of Goa Richard D’Souza told TOI.
To maintain the water security of a region, protecting tigers and forests is crucial, he said.
“Declaring a natural habitat as a tiger reserve is the national mandate,” said environmentalist Ramesh Gauns.
“There are seven mining leases inside the Mhadei and 11 inside the Netravali wildlife sanctuary. In order to protect mining interests, the Goa government is reluctant to notify the tiger reserve.”
During the ongoing tiger census exercise, the Goa forest department has collected evidence of tigers in the sanctuary areas of Sattari and Dharbandora. These have already been sent to the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, for confirmation of the tiger population.
In 2010, Wildlife Institute of India associated scientists Bilal Habib and Gautam Talukdar had said in their status report that the area of tiger occupancy within Goa is about 322sqkm.
The tiger-occupied landscape in Goa forms part of the contiguous corridor connecting Anshi-Dandeli in Karnataka and Sahyadri Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra.
In 2014, the tiger census indicated the presence of five tigers, which was again confirmed in 2019 through camera traps. In 2020, the National Tiger Conservation Authority described the Western Ghats stretch of Goa as an important tiger corridor and the Union environment ministry had recommended that the Goa government declare it as a tiger reserve.
Earlier, in 2016, the state wildlife board of Goa headed by the then chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar had approved the proposal of carving out a tiger reserve, which subsequently did not materialize.
Besides this, in 2009, a tiger was discovered killed in Keri, and, in January 2020, a tigress along with a sub-adult tiger and two cubs were found killed by poisoning in Golaulim’s forests.
